At 08:02 AM 6/19/98 -0500, Linda Derry wrote:
>at 7:57 pm, 6/18/98 Ed Jelks wrote:
>
>>
>I understand what you're saying Dr. Jelks, but  I have to say this brings
to mind an example  Philip Barker had in his text on Techniques of
Archaeological Excavation.   (Which I can't quote directly since someone
walked off with my treasured copy and I can't find the section in the
latest revised edition).  In explaining the advantages of "Open Area
Excavation" vs. wheeler boxes, I seem to remember Barker comparing it to
throwing a large number of rugs of different sizes on the floor.  This in
many ways this simulates the stratigraphy on complex sites.  Then he
suggested that you cut out a small square here and a small square there -
much like the approach you describe above.  His point being,that you would
miss many of the smaller rugs and be off the edges of even the some of the
larger rugs, and consequently would not understand the true chronological
laying down of the rugs 88- - - or in our case, the chronological
development of the site. I always thought this was a wonderful analogy and
often use it to illustrate the concept to students.
>
>Linda Derry ([log in to unmask]) Old Cahawba Archaeological Park Alabama
Historical Commission
>
Hi Linda,  Barker's rug analogy is an apt one.  I would add that people,
burrowing critters, erosion, and other agencies usually cut random holes
through at least some of the rugs after they have been thrown down on a
site, redepositing rug fragments thus displaced here and there about the
site and contributing to the general confusion.  Also, sometimes a rug is
thrown onto a site in such a way as to intrude into, or truncate, rugs that
are already there.
 
The archaeologist's job is to find and expose each rug (or surviving
remnants of each rug) individually so she can observe and describe the rug
as a separate structural component; to collect a sample of artifacts and
other materials encompassed within each rug; and to observe and record the
spatial/stratigraphic relationship of each rug to the others.  The
difficulties involved in doing all this at a complex site without making
too many errors cannot be overemphasized.
 
THIS SHOULD BE DONE IN THE FIELD WHILE THE RUGS CAN BE OBSERVED DIRECTLY.
Trying to figure out a site's strucuture accurately and fully after the
fact from profiles of the sides of arbitrarily dug squares is impossible
and inevitably results in unnecessary loss of important data.
 
I am convinced that a site can be dissected (excavated) most effectively
only by using a flexible research design involving continuous judicious
probing, interpretation, and reinterpretation of the site's structural
details as digging proceeds, with frequent modification of excavation plans
to take into account the ever-changing observations made on the rugs as
they are exposed, one after another.
        Ed